This week we are going to be exploring three simple ways to help connect the ministry we do at church with parents at home.  At Liquid we are attempting to partner more with parents [learn more] and these are a few of the small things we’ve done in this area.

People that lead in student ministry are my heroes. The late night conversations with teenagers in crisis over pizza and soda . . . the constant need to come up with fun games to engage students . . . the need for staying on the edge of student culture to understand how to reach the next generation.

Today is just a quick post about a small idea to help build a stronger connection with parents that I bumped into last fall when I was working more directly with our student ministry.

During our Fall Retreat we had an early morning prayer time every morning.  I really cherish those times on retreats . . . a chance to hear from our small group leaders about where students are at . . . to focus the day on where we are headed into . . . to have some adult conversation!  As a last minute thought I decided to invite parents’ into that prayer meeting by offering them to join us via our conference call number. [See more about free conference calls here.]

In the email that I sent out right before the retreat [see that email here] I invited the parent’s to join us.  We hosted the prayer meeting in a room where we had a speaker phone. A really simple idea . . . not a big deal.

We didn’t have a huge turn out on the call . . . just a few parents every day.  But the parent’s who came appreciated us making it available to them.  We also took a chance to pray for their kids specifically. It was healthy for our student ministry leaders to be reminded that although we had these students for this weekend . . . the parents have them all the time.

It was a simple way to invite interested parents’ into the retreat and build another bridge between the church and the family . . . definitely a keep for future retreats!

What have you seen in helping build a stronger bridge with the parents of your students at your church?

On Friday, I’m going to confess a change I’ve had in my thinking about an old school kids’ ministry idea that I used to make fun of but now I see tremendous value in.